page_title: Indentured servitude
hierarchical_section_title: Indentured servitude
caption_attribution_description: The indenture of Henry Mayer to Abraham Hestant of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on 29 September 1738. The document states that Hestant paid for Mayer's passage from Rotterdam with "Six Pistoles" [sic]. The text also includes the following: "Henry Mayer ... by these Presents doth bind ... him self Servant to the said Abraham Hestant .... [or] his Executors and Assigns, from ... the Date hereof, for ... the full Term of Three Years... During all which Term, the said Servant ... faithfully shall serve ... honestly, and obediently in all Things, as a good and dutiful Servant ought to do. AND the said Abraham Hestant [or] his Executors and Assigns, during the said Term, shall find and provide for the said Henry Mayer sufficient Meat, Drink, Apparrell [sic], Washing and Lodging, and at he Expiration of the said term ... Henry Mayer [is] to be Made free and [to] Recieve [sic] from the said Abraham Hestant two suits of Apparrell [sic] one whereof to be new..." English: source: Immigrant Servants Database author: signed by Henry Mayer, dated 1738
context_page_description: An indentured servant or indentured laborer is an employee within a system of unfree labor who is bound by a signed or forced contract to work without pay for the owner of the indenture for a period of time. The contract often lets the employer sell the labor of an indenturee to a third party. Indenturees usually enter into an indenture for a specific payment or other benefit, or to meet a legal obligation, such as debt bondage. On completion of the contract, indentured servants were given their freedom, and occasionally plots of land. Indentured servitude was often brutal, with a high percentage of servants dying prior to the expiration of their indentures. In many countries, systems of indentured labor have now been outlawed, and are banned by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a form of slavery.
context_section_description: An indentured servant or indentured laborer is an employee (indenturee) within a system of unfree labor who is bound by a signed or forced contract (indenture) to work without pay for the owner of the indenture for a period of time. The contract often lets the employer sell the labor of an indenturee to a third party. Indenturees usually enter into an indenture for a specific payment or other benefit (such as transportation to a new place), or to meet a legal obligation, such as debt bondage. On completion of the contract, indentured servants were given their freedom, and occasionally plots of land.  Indentured servitude was often brutal, with a high percentage of servants dying prior to the expiration of their indentures.  In many countries, systems of indentured labor have now been outlawed, and are banned by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a form of slavery.
caption: An indenture signed by Henry Mayer, with an "X", in 1738. This contract bound Mayer to Abraham Hestant of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who had paid for Mayer to travel from Europe.
exif: {}